


The City of Angels

by tsitsho



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-29
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-05-29 21:17:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6394201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsitsho/pseuds/tsitsho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the murder of Sleepy Lagoon and the wrongful incarceration of nine Mexican American teens following it, Los Angeles has been plagued with violence, and June of 1943 is the boiling point. Hawke and his ragtag group of friends are trying to enjoy their summer despite the World War taking place overseas, and the discrimination they're faced with as non-white citizens in the age of segregation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The City of Angels

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration to write this came from my topic of choice for a recent research paper: the Zoot Suit Riots of 1943. It's an incredibly violent and racially motivated event in American history that is often overlooked, and happens to be one of the most interesting things I've written on (in my opinion, anyways) - I wanted to explore it via the multicultural perspective of the da2 cast!
> 
> The first chapter is a bit short, and most of it was written at about 2 am, but, it's a start!
> 
> Translations for a few of Hawke and Isabela's 40s Spanish slang at the end

Youth is a rank smell. Heady and heavy and unappealing to the masses as it hangs around like a dark smog - it smells too much of freedom and carelessness, and causes an unsightly crinkle in the sophisticated and high-turned noses of any passerby who happen to be over the age of twenty-five. On the bustling streets of East Los Angeles, the smell was even worse than anywhere else - it reeked of the dregs of a generation without care, dark skinned teens milling about in the street, the scent of wild, reckless abandon hanging like a cloud around them without the perfumed privilege the white denizens stank of. There was no adoration for the youth lazing on street corners in the scorching heat of June, nowhere to go when the gate of every pool and the chilly interior of every movie theater were guarded by looming signs in windows - “No colored allowed,” “We serve whites only,” lovely scrawling letters spelling out messages that would be so cruel had they not been a familiar sight since childhood. No sympathy for the children burning, browning, freckling in the harsh hot sun of the City of Angels; only ever bitter distaste for the pachucos and punks that flocked to trouble like moths to a flame.

Tensions in the city had been rising like the smoke from said flame, spiraling up to the ceiling and curling in on itself, dark and choking and ever present since the ending of the school year a few weeks prior. There were too little of places for it too go, too small a space for it until it simply hung around the city and choked its residents with itself and the stench of rebellion - Los Angeles was on the verge of becoming a war zone. It had been teetering on that edge since the summer before, in August, 1942, when the unremarkable reservoir on Williams ranch went from the Mexican American swimming hole and lover’s lane... to morbid landmark. 

Thoughts like that were too dark, too dreary, in Hawke’s opinion, as he reclined in the sunshine on the front steps of his tenant building. Leave the the thoughts of the murder and a biased judge who indicted twenty-two innocent Latino boys for José’s murder to Anders - Lord knew he could go on about it until his voice was hoarse. Hawke didn’t much care for the politics of it all, he just liked to front and start fights like that Italian gangster… What was his name? Chippony? Chapow? Yet another thing Anders probably knew, and Hawke didn’t quite care about.

His thought process, albeit a slow one, was broken by a low, rumbling statement of his name: “Hawke.” Ah, Fenris and that voice of his, like the steady rumble of a far off landslide. Poetry. He’d have to write that one to Merrill, she’d appreciate it.

“What.” Deadpanned Hawke in, what he considered, a pretty decent impression of the other boy. He refused to open his eyes - he was relaxing for Chrissake, and he wouldn’t stop relaxing for whatever Fenris thought he needed to hear.

An unamused snort. “You were thinking about something. You had this pinched up look on your face. I wanted to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself thinking too hard.”

Hawke tilted his head back farther until the back of his head brushed the cement step behind it as he cracked open one eye to cast a withering glare at Fenris before his face cracked into his usual mirthful grin. Together, they looked like every white cop in L.A.’s worst nightmare - a troublemaking set of sixteen year old boys; one of them with skin like ebony and a switchblade clenched in one fist, and the other with a Spanish accent and the half grown beard of a teenager who obviously had very bad ideas. If the words “pachuco” and “hoodlum” were uttered, Hawke and Fenris would probably be the image to pop into the heads of every white person with ears within a mile radius. That, and the fact and he and Fenris did little more than lounge in public and whistle at girls, incredibly unexciting behavior for two supposed rabble rousers, always tickled Hawke’s humor to no end. 

His smile turned into a wolfish baring of teeth, giving a sharp bark of laughter before replying, “I was just thinking about the ass kicking you got from that bolillo last week - I’m trying to memorize every detail of how your face looked so I can tell the story to my future children. Then we can all have a good giggle about that hilarious experience.”

Fenris had a grip on Hawke’s shirt and a fist reeled back with a wicked smile before the other boy could take a breath after his snide remark. 

“Oh, lay off, Broody, you drip.”

With Fenris distracted by the sudden interruption, Hawke yanked himself out of the rather unsavory position, and scrambled down to the sidewalk where Isabela stood with her hip cocked to the side and her skirt hiked up to a dangerous height on her thighs. Green eyes narrowed in both irritation and greeting as the “drip” in question leaned back into his earlier recline against the steps - Hawke would probably earn another knock to the teeth before sundown, he could be patient.

Hawke, on the other hand, was much more outspoken about his excitement for seeing Isabela, exclaiming, “Izzy!” and approaching with arms outstretched to swing her into a big, somewhat sweaty hug. 

Laughing, her hand came up to stop his mouth from going in for a kiss that would ruin her makeup, and waited to be gingerly placed back on solid ground. “Calmantas montes, Hawke, you’re so far off the cob, I thought you were Merrill there for a second.” She snickered, and tapped a cigarette out of the box in her hand, patiently holding it between her teeth for Hawke to dig out his lighter for her. 

Fenris grunted, crinkling his nose at the strong smell of tobacco wafting toward him in the stiff breeze. “That’s disgusting.”

“You’re disgusting.” Isabela shot back with a grin and a puff of smoke, which was met with a squint, a scoff, and Fenris waving his hand to keep it away from his orifices. A few more deep inhales, and Isabela was ready to speak - she was a walking, talking Daily News for gossip and rumors. “I heard some real killer-diller chit chat today from that total dish at the diner - you know, the one with the…” She paused to bite the butt of her cigarette and made a wide, sweeping gesture at her chest, teeth flashing white against her dark lipstick as she smiled.

To her dismay, the joke only earned a few chuckles from the other Spanish speaker, and an annoyed squint from Fenris, and she sighed loudly before carrying on. “So, anyways, lovely lady with just enough cleavage and those nice legs you know I like-”

“Isabela.”

Isabela sighed again through her nose. “You’re a coupl’a crumbs, you know that?” She huffed, and continued. “She tells me her brother, or, cousin, or, whatever - she had two buttons undone, I don’t remember every detail she gave me - works over on the upper East side, right? Near whatever the Hell they’re calling the slammer now. And she tells me, you know what she tells me?” She flicked her ashes in Fenris’ general direction, snickering as he let out a loud snort. “She says to me that cousin of her’s saw a certain carnal of our’s walking out of there this morning. You know the one? With the pretty blond hair and preachy attitude?”

Hawke sucked in a loud gasp, grabbing Isabela’s hands and getting dangerously close to the point of her lit cigarette making contact with his prized beard. “Anders?!” He exclaimed, jaw dropping.

The gossip let out a snort of laughter and tapped his jaw back into place with the back of her free hand, then gently pushed him back to a reasonable distance with a comment on his breath and whatever he’d been eating somehow smelling worse than what she was smoking. A few extra seconds gained while Hawke nervously checked the state of his breath, Isabela went on. “Oh, come on, Hawke, you didn’t think they’d keep him in there for life just because he got picked up during that pendejadas… that scuffle on Main Street, did you?”

“I wouldn’t mind if they did.” Fenris finally spoke up with a slight upturn of his mouth.

Isabela flicked another chunk of ash at him, “and here I was under the impression you were head over heels for Blondie. What with that pretty accent he has when he gets all... civil rights.” The comment was met by another snort, and Fenris’ expression went back to its resting look of utter disdain.

The other boy was back in her space again as soon as he was sure his breath wasn’t as bad as she’d made it out to be, brown eyes narrowed at her curiously. “You’re sure it was him? It’s been less than a week.”

“Me la rayo!” She exclaimed indignantly, immaculate eyebrows raised in surprise that he’d question her gossip. “Of course I’m sure. I heard a bunch of people talking about it on my way here, I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it. It’s not like they’d ship him off like they did to Kitten - he’s probably home by now.”

\--  
“And that’s when you got involved?”

“Yes, sir.”

Varric leaned back in his chair, absentmindedly fiddling with the pen in his hands as his gaze roved over the kid steadily gazing back at him across the table. He thought he would’ve been free from this shit for the week with those riots going on - no need for an investigator when officers were just dragging in the pachucos left in the street after each wave of violence and throwing them into every crowded holding cell they had. But, he thought wrong, and he was stuck interviewing a sixteen year old with a broken nose and his gaggle of idiot friends waiting outside for each of their turns when he should’ve been home with a drink and the newspaper. There was a World War going on, and this is how Varric’s time was being spent: listening to a bunch of teenagers point fingers at each other over who did this and who said that.

He sighed, and leaned forward again to rest his elbows on the table. “Well, Garrett-”

“I’m Hawke, to my friends.” That was a surprisingly cheeky smile for a Mexican American kid in a locked room with a white officer.

“Alright, Chuckles,” Varric replied without missing a beat, and turned back through the few pages of notes he’d wrangled out of Hawke. He didn’t know much about the riots, and there was a suspicious amount of ambiguity in his answers involving that blond one. Hernandez? Anders? Whatever his name was. Hawke was a poor liar - Varric would give him a bit of slack, though, as a sixteen year old with the guts to try to cover up whatever his friend had done, even if it meant lying to an officer. “That’s all I need from you. Or, if you’ve miraculously remembered something interesting within the last few seconds…?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then, you’re done. Shoo. Go wait outside for the rest of your buddies.” Varric replied, waving a hand towards the door. “You’ve already told me what happened on June 3rd, and the days following. I don’t need to hear your life story.”

He looked up to see Hawke only half out of his chair, worrying his split lip with his teeth, and Varric tapped his pen impatiently on the table. “Go on.” He insisted, gesturing towards the exit again and raised his eyebrows. “Unless you have anything else to tell me, tell that blond one to come in here on your way out the door.”

That did it.

“Detective, I…” Hawke let go of his lip, and sank back into the chair. “I think I remembered something.”

**Author's Note:**

> Pachuco - derogatory term for Mexican American youth, thugs, gangsters, etc  
> Bolillo - anglo, "white boy"  
> Calmantas montes - chill out  
> Carnal - brother, close friend  
> Pendejadas - stupidness  
> Me la rayo - I swear!


End file.
